Although manually operated garlic presses are useful and effective, they are generally difficult to clean, which particularly involves the removal of the compressed clove from the apertures in the floor plate of the press chamber. In routine use, these apertures tend to become filled with the material from a garlic clove as it is squeezed in the press chamber between the floor plate and an anvil. The anvil compressively descends in the chamber towards the floor plate as the press levers are manually squeezed together by the user so that fluid and paste from the compressed clove can drain out through the floor plate apertures.
Attempts to flush out any remaining material from the apertures using tap water pressure are usually ineffective. Moreover, surface brushing of the floor plate usually does not clear all of the material from the apertures.
Prior art garlic presses have proposed using a cleaning plate with a plurality of spaced, upstanding or projecting pins or projections. The plurality of pins or projections would remove the remaining material or debris from the press floor plate apertures. Various adaptations of this concept have been proposed. However, so far as is known, these adaptations suffer from various drawbacks in that the resulting garlic press, particularly in association with some form of cleaning plate, tends to be cumbersome and unwieldy, and awkward to use, clean, and/or store.
The present invention provides an improved combination of a manually operated lever-type garlic press, associated cleaning plate and mutual interconnection means which reduces or overcomes these drawbacks.